Copenhagen in 2 days, on foot

This 2-day self-guided walking plan for Copenhagen covers 24 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 2 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Copenhagen rewards a detour.

The Copenhagen route at a glance

Day 1

Day 1 covers 12 stops over about 4.5 km as the crow flies, from Botanical Garden to Kastellet. ≈ 4.5 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. Botanical Garden: The University of Copenhagen's ten-hectare botanical garden in the city centre, centred on an 1874 Palm House of cast iron and glass and Denmark's largest collection of living plants. 0.4 km to the next stop
2. Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark): Denmark's national art museum beside the Østre Anlæg park, pairing an 1896 Renaissance-revival hall with a modern wing to show seven centuries of European and Danish painting. 0.4 km to the next stop
3. Rosenborg Castle: Christian IV's red-brick Renaissance castle, begun in 1606, now guards the Danish crown jewels and a coronation throne of narwhal tusk, set in the beloved King's Garden. 0.5 km to the next stop
4. Torvehallerne: Copenhagen's most popular food market: two bright halls of steel and glass beside Norreport station, packed with over sixty stalls of produce, fish, cheese, smorrebrod and coffee. 0.4 km to the next stop
5. Round Tower (Rundetaarn): A 17th-century Copenhagen brick tower you climb by a wide spiral ramp rather than stairs, built for horse and carriage and still crowned by a working observatory at the top. 0.3 km to the next stop
6. Stroeget: Copenhagen's car-free spine is a busy 1.1-kilometre chain of pedestrian streets and market squares from City Hall to Kongens Nytorv, pedestrianised in 1962 and later copied by cities worldwide. 0.7 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Kongens Nytorv: Copenhagen's largest square, laid out in 1670 and ringed by theatre, palace and grand hotels, with a much-recast royal horseman presiding over its leafy central oval, the Krinsen. 0.3 km to the next stop
2. Nyhavn: Copenhagen's most photographed canal: a narrow 17th-century harbour lined with candy-coloured townhouses and old wooden ships, once a rowdy sailors' quarter, now the city's cheerful, cafe-lined heart. 0.5 km to the next stop
3. Amalienborg: Four matching rococo palaces around an octagonal square form the Danish monarch's main Copenhagen home, guarded day and night, with the noon changing of the guard its daily spectacle. 0.3 km to the next stop
4. Frederik's Church (Marble Church): Copenhagen's great domed Marble Church, begun in 1749, stood as a ruin for nearly 150 years before a financier's money finally completed it, in limestone rather than marble. 0.1 km to the next stop
5. Designmuseum Danmark: Denmark's museum of design and decorative arts, set in the Rococo former Frederiks Hospital, famous for its gallery of Danish chairs, ceramics, textiles and Poul Henningsen lamps. 0.6 km to the next stop
6. Kastellet: A perfectly preserved star-shaped citadel from the 1600s, still an active military base, whose grassy ramparts, moat, windmill and church now double as one of Copenhagen's calmest parks.

Day 2

Day 2 covers 12 stops over about 94 km as the crow flies, from The Little Mermaid to Kronborg Castle. ≈ 94 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. The Little Mermaid: Copenhagen's most famous statue is also its smallest surprise: a 1.25-metre bronze mermaid on a harbour rock, unveiled in 1913 and vandalised, beheaded and bombed many times since. 2.1 km to the next stop
2. Freetown Christiania: A self-governing, largely car-free community of hand-built houses on former military land in Christianshavn, where residents decide things collectively and, in 2024, reclaimed their once-notorious Pusher Street themselves. 0.4 km to the next stop
3. Church of Our Saviour (Vor Frelsers Kirke): A Baroque church in Christianshavn whose gilded corkscrew spire you climb on an external staircase, 400 steps up to a gilded globe topped by a nearly four-metre Christ figure. 0.9 km to the next stop
4. Christiansborg Palace: A granite palace on its own island that is also parliament, supreme court and prime minister's office at once, with medieval ruins in the cellar and Copenhagen's tallest tower above. 0.4 km to the next stop
5. National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet): Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, in the old Prince's Mansion, home to the Bronze Age Sun Chariot, the Gundestrup Cauldron and treasures spanning the entire Danish story. 0.3 km to the next stop
6. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: A sculpture and antiquities museum built on a Carlsberg brewing fortune, arranged around a central glass-domed winter garden of palms, with world-class Egyptian, Roman, Rodin and French painting collections. 0.3 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Copenhagen City Hall (Koebenhavns Raadhus): Copenhagen's grand National Romantic town hall on City Hall Square, with a 105-metre tower and, in a back room, Jens Olsen's famous astronomical World Clock built from 15,448 parts. 0.2 km to the next stop
2. Tivoli Gardens: A 19th-century pleasure garden of rides, flower beds and evening lanterns beside Central Station, where a hand-braked wooden roller coaster from 1914 still clatters among the greenery after dark. 2.1 km to the next stop
3. Carlsberg District: The former Carlsberg brewery in Valby, now redeveloping into a mixed-use quarter, where landmark gates, granite elephants and historic brewhouses stand among new housing, cafes and cultural venues. 29 km to the next stop
4. Roskilde Cathedral: The brick-Gothic UNESCO cathedral at Roskilde, burial church of most Danish monarchs since the fifteenth century, with the Viking Ship Museum on the fjord a short walk away. 35 km to the next stop
5. Frederiksborg Castle: The red-brick Renaissance castle on three islets at Hillerod, rebuilt after an 1859 fire and now the Museum of National History, about forty kilometres north of Copenhagen. 23 km to the next stop
6. Kronborg Castle: The Renaissance fortress at Elsinore guarding the narrow Oresund, world-famous as the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet and a UNESCO World Heritage Site about forty-five kilometres north of Copenhagen.

Distances are straight-line between stops; streets add a little.

Where the route eats

Food and market stops on the Copenhagen tour, each with its own story in the app:

• Torvehallerne: Copenhagen's most popular food market: two bright halls of steel and glass beside Norreport station, packed with over sixty stalls of produce, fish, cheese, smorrebrod and coffee.

Updated: September 25, 2026

Full Copenhagen guide and all stops → · Other itineraries: 3 days